Celebrities Who Were Raised By Single Parents

Warning: This list may get you choked up.

There are a lot of misconceptions about single parenthood, but the truth is that kids raised by single parents do just as well as children from two-parent households.

In fact, many successful entertainers and business moguls have been raised by single moms and dads, and they often claim to have been strengthened by a childhood spent with one parent. Celebrities from Leonardo DiCaprio to Jodie Foster have single parents to thank for much of their success.

Angelina Jolie

Actor and humanitarian Angelina Jolie is the daughter of celebrity parents, Marcheline Bertrand and Jon Voight, but Jolie was primarily raised by her mother after Bertrand separated from Voight when Jolie was a baby. The “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” star has been estranged from her father for decades.

Mariah Carey

Singer Mariah Carey was raised by her opera singer mother, Patricia Hickey, from the time that she was a toddler. Carey’s father and mother divorced when the “Always Be My Baby” artist was 3 years old. Carey didn’t have much contact with her father during her childhood.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo DiCaprio’s mom, Irmelin Indenbirken, separated from the actor’s father, George DiCaprio, when her son was a baby. Indenbirken raised DiCaprio mostly on her own, and the two are very close. In 2006, he told People that his mom is “the only person” he would buy diamonds for, “and for a while now she hasn’t wanted one.”

Apolo Anton Ohno

Apolo Ohno’s mother left the family when he was 1 year old, leaving his father, Yuki Ohno, to raise the Olympic medalist on his own. Yuki, a hairstylist, was a dedicated dad, driving his son hundreds of miles for competitions and training.

Jay-Z

Gloria Carter raised Jay-Z and his three older siblings on her own in Brooklyn, New York, after their father abandoned the family. The rapper and business mogul, who has a strong bond with his mom, has spoken candidly about his tough childhood.

“Sometimes we’d pay the light bill, sometimes we paid the phone, sometimes the gas went off,” he told Vanity Fair in 2013. “We weren’t starving — we were eating, we were OK. But it was things like you didn’t want to be embarrassed when you went to school, you didn’t want to have dirty sneakers or wear the same clothes over again.”

“To remember the chaos that [my mother] went through, the abuse, I don’t know how she did it,” Aguilera told Latina in 2010. “But it’s amazing how much you can trick your mind into surviving when you have to.”

Eva Mendes

Eva Mendes’ parents, Eva Pérez Suárez and Juan Carlos Méndez, divorced when the actor was young and Mendes was raised primarily by her mom. Her father, though, was still present in her life during childhood. When filming 2012’s “Girl in Progress,” Mendes called her mom “a few times to tell her thank you,” she told Quinceanera.com. “Because it’s tough. Raising a child on your own is really tough.”

Keanu Reeves

Keanu Reeves was raised primarily by his mother, Patricia Taylor, with the support of relatives, after his father, Samuel Nowlin Reeves, Jr., abandoned the family when the actor was 3 years old. Reeves did not have much contact with his father during his childhood. The “John Wick” actor moved around a lot as a kid and had a few stepfathers.

Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster’s dad abandoned his family before the actor was born, leaving Foster’s mother, Evelyn Ella Almond, to raise her and her three siblings on her own. Foster’s mom played a large role in the launch of her daughter’s career, which led to a tense — but loving — relationship between the two.

“She made me do the things she couldn’t do well,” Foster told PorterEdit in a July interview. “It was an interesting relationship that was fraught — wonderful but painful, too.”

Kevin Hart

Comedian Kevin Hart and his older brother, Robert, were raised in Philadelphia solely by their mom, Nancy. Hart’s father, Henry Witherspoon, was in and out of his sons’ lives for most of the actor’s childhood.

“The reason I am the way I am is because my mom was strong,” Hart said on “The Howard Stern Show.” “It may have affected my mom, but my mom was such a strong woman, she said, ‘Look, regardless of whatever your father’s doing and where he is, I have a job to do raising you, you’re going to do what you’re supposed to do and you’re going to grow up to be two intelligent men.'”

Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart’s parents, Marian and Donald Leibowitz, divorced when the comic was a preteen. Marian was left to raise Stewart and his brothers, Lawrence, Dan and Matthew, on her own. The former “Daily Show” host has spoken openly about his estranged relationship with his dad, and he told The Guardian in 2015 that it was still “complicated.”

The two are incredibly close: According to The New York Times, Phelps said during the 2008 Summer Olympics, “There’s so much emotions going through my head, so much excitement. I guess I just want to see my mom.”

Demi Lovato

Singer Demi Lovato and her sisters were raised primarily by their mother, Dianna De La Garza. Lovato’s parents divorced in the mid-1990s when the “Sorry Not Sorry” singer was 2 years old.

“It broke my heart to realize that my girls had seen and heard so many things that must have terrified them,” De La Garza wrote in her book, “Falling with Wings: A Mother’s Story,” according to People. “Starting over as a single mom was hard. But I finally felt free.”

Selena Gomez

Selena Gomez’s parents, Mandy Teefey and Ricardo Joel Gomez, split when the singer was only 5 years old. Gomez was raised primarily by her mom, with the help of her grandparents. She had difficulty coping with the divorce growing up but has said recently that she now understands the sacrifices her mom had to make to support her family.

“It’s because of [my mom] that I can do things on my own,” she told Glamour in 2012.

Adele

Adele‘s father, Mark Evans, left the family when the Grammy Award-winning singer was 2 years old. Her mother, Penny Adkins, raised Adele on her own, and the mother-daughter duo share a close relationship. When accepting her award at the 2012 Grammys, Adele told the crowd, “I just want to say, Mum, your girl did good!”

Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts‘ parents, Betty and Walter Roberts, divorced when the beloved actor was young. Betty soon remarried, but later divorced her second husband and raised her children on her own. Roberts’ mom passed away in 2015 after a battle with cancer — a loss that still breaks the actor’s heart. Roberts told People in 2017 that she still thinks about her mother “all the time.”

Pierce Brosnan

Pierce Brosnan was raised by his mother, May, after his father, Thomas Brosnan, left the family when the actor was an infant. May moved to London for work when Brosnan was 4 years old, and the veteran actor was then largely raised by his grandparents, Philip and Kathleen Smith.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey was raised by her grandmother for the first few years of her life, and then at the age of 6, she moved with her mother, Vernita Lee, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As a teenager, the iconic television mogul, who had a difficult childhood, was sent to live with her father, Vernon Winfrey. In 1986, Winfrey told the New York Times, “His discipline channeled my need for love and attention into a new direction.”

Samuel L. Jackson

Actor Samuel L. Jackson was an only child raised by his mother, Elizabeth, with the help of his grandparents and extended family. He didn’t have a relationship with his father, Roy Henry Jackson, whom he had only met twice. Jackson speaks fondly of his childhood, praising his mother for how hard she worked to take care of him.

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand and her older brother, Sheldon, were raised by Streisand’s mother, Diana, after her father, Emanuel, died following an epileptic seizure. Streisand was just a toddler at the time of her father’s death. The iconic performer has had a difficult relationship with her mom, who was often critical of Streisand.

Mary J. Blige

Singer and actor Mary J. Blige was raised by her mother, Cora, after her father, Thomas Blige, left the family in the mid-1970s. Blige has a strong relationship with her mom.

“You were to us the greatest dancer, the greatest mother, the greatest cook, the greatest friend,” Blige told her mother during VH1’s 2017 “Dear Mama” special. “I know I didn’t listen to you a lot when I was younger, but I can hear you so clearly now as a woman.”

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert was raised by his mother, Lorna, after his father, James, and two brothers, Peter and Paul, died in a plane crash in 1974 when Colbert was 10 years old. Colbert was extremely close to his mother, and the late-night talk show host was devastated when she passed away in 2013.